Dyanne Thorne

About Dyanne Thorne

In Tribute:
Dyanne Thorne died in Las Vegas on January 28, 2020 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 83.

Dyanne Thorne (born October 14, 1936, in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA) is an American actress, nude model for pin-up magazines, and former Las Vegas showgirl. Due to her commanding figure and large breasts, she was usually typecast into a sexual and physical abusive female warden type. Her typecast started due to her role in four "Ilsa" sexploitation series of movies that influenced the Nazi exploitation film genre.

Thorne first appeared as "Lahna Monroe" in the 1964 sexploitation film Sin in the Suburbs from grindhouse director Joseph W. Sarno. Her co-star, Audrey Campbell, would soon star as the dominatrix Olga in a series of "roughie" films (Olga's House of Shame, et al.). Thorne continued to make exploitation films and sex comedies such as Love Me Like I Do (1970) and Wam-Bam, Thank You, Spaceman (1973) before attaining notoriety as Ilsa, a cruel Nazi dominatrix similar to Campbell's Olga. Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974) was a surprise hit that spawned three sequels and a flood of imitators, creating a Nazi exploitation film subgenre.

Thorne's most remembered role is that of Ilsa in the Ilsa series of softcore/S&M movies (parts of the movies involved topless women and/or simulated sex scenes, while other parts involved tortures). Ilsa was portrayed as a huge breasted dominatrix who abused her prisoners, most of whom were females.

The four movies of the series were:
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975), considered the first and also most famous movie of the Nazi exploitation genre. The movie was filmed on the prison camp sets left behind from the Hogan's Heroes television series. Thorne's Ilsa is a brutal buxom commandant of a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. She sexually and physically abuses her male and female prisoners and uses them for diabolical medical experiments. In this movie she also raped her male prisoners. Those of them who ejaculated before she was done were then castrated. Her downfall comes when she submits herself to an American prisoner who can withhold ejaculating. The film, which was banned in Germany, was notorious for its level of sadism and for portraying Nazi cruelty as sexual actions.

Despite the fact that Ilsa was killed at the end of the film, she was resurrected for a sequel, Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976) - This was set in the Middle East in an unspecified post-war time period. Ilsa has western women kidnapped to an unnamed Arab country, in which she trains them to be sex slaves for local sheiks. An American spy is sent to seduce her in order to overthrow the main sheik.

This was followed by Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia with Ilsa as the sadistic and over-sexed leader of a Russian gulag in 1953. Just prior to Stalin's fall, Ilsa is in charge of a gulag for male opposers of the Russian order. The guards always fight for the right to spend the night with her (two at a time). When Stalin dies, she has to evacuate the place. Years later, she runs a whore house chain in Canada, in one of which she meets a man who survived her gulag even after refusing her charms. She has him kidnapped and rubs her naked form against his but he once again resists her. Both of them then try to avenge each other.

The last film,Greta - Haus ohne Männer (1977) (aka Ilsa, The Wicked Warden) - an unofficial sequel takes place in a corrupt Latin American "banana republic". Here, Ilsa is the bisexual warden of a women's prison in which she ran a corrupted medical center for sex offender females. Directed by Jess Franco, this film falls into the women in prison genre with no connection to Ilsa's Nazi past. To avoid copyright issues, she was called Greta and was portrayed as a lesbian, thus turning her sex drive to her female patients. Eventually, the prisoners rebel.

Credited as Diana and not Dyanne, she and her husband were credited as the Bride and Groom in Franc Roddam's segment "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde in the film Aria (1987).

Her last and also most mainstream role was as James Belushi's transgender father in the 1987 film Real Men (a point James Belushi happily stressed to his friend by grabbing her breasts).

Contrary to some publications, Thorne did start but not complete her degree in Anthropology. Instead, during 10 years of simultaneous acting, she has earned a Ph.D. in Comparative religion.
She and her husband Howard Maurer (both had roles in five of the same movies) are ordained ministers, who own an alternative wedding business in Las Vegas, Nevada. They conduct scenic outdoor weddings as an alternative to a traditional wedding chapel.